plantuml-generator

What's plantuml-generator

plantuml-generator is a tool for generating PlantUML text. It can help you understanding the classes hierarchy by its UML class diagram. The plantuml-generator automate generating PlantUML text by specifying a Javadoc API website URL. It fetches Javadoc HTML pages of any Javadoc API websites such as Java SE and Spring framework, then it parses HTML pages to a PlantUML text.

The following examples are using this plantuml-generator tool to generate PlantUML text and then using plantuml.jar to generate UML class diagram picture.

Example 1:

java -jar plantuml-generator.jar -u https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/ -p java.util -c Map -m false

Running the above command, you will get the PlantUML text file: classDiagram-java-util-Map-(without-members).txt

java -jar plantuml.jar classDiagram-java-util-Map-(without-members).txt

Running the second command, You will get the class diagram picture file: classDiagram-java-util-Map-(without-members).png. The picture is shown below.

Example 2:

java -jar plantuml-generator.jar -u https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/ -p java.util -c Map

java -jar plantuml.jar classDiagram-java-util-Map.txt

How to develop

To develop plantuml-generator, you need to install the following software:

• Git
• JDK 8
• Maven

You can choose any Java IDE to develop this project, We strongly suggest you use the IntelliJ IDEA.

How to run

How to run with Maven command line

1. Clone project source code to your local computer

   git clone https://github.com/tagnja/plantuml-generator.git

2. Running the project with maven command line

   mvn exec:java -Dexec.mainClass="com.taogen.docs2uml.Main" -Dexec.args="-u https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/ -p java.nio"

How to run with the executable jar file

1. To get this project executable jar file

   • You can get the executable jar file by downloading from GitHub releases.

   • You can also get the executable jar file by using Maven command to package the source code. The target packaged jar file is plantuml-generator-jar-with-dependencies.jar, and you can rename to plantuml-generator.jar or others.

   # clone this project to your local computer
   git clone https://github.com/tagnja/plantuml-generator.git
   # package source code to jar
   mvn package -Dmaven.test.skip=true
   # rename jar file
   mv target/plantuml-generator-jar-with-dependencies.jar target/plantuml-generator.jar

2. Running the jar file

   You can run the following command to run the jar file.

   java -jar plantuml-generator.jar -u <javadoc_url> -p <package_path> 

   For example:

   java -jar plantuml-generator.jar -u https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/ -p java.nio

After running this project, you will get the PlantUML text. More details about this command refer to "Usage" section of this README.

Using the plantuml.jar to generate UML diagram pictures

Once you get a PlantUML text file by running this project. Then you can use plantuml.jar to generate a UML diagram by the PlantUML text file.

How to get plantuml.jar

You can download the plantuml.jar from PlantUML.

How to use plantuml.jar

Running the following command to get the UML diagram:

java -jar plantuml.jar <plantuml_text_filepath>

More detail about PlantUML usage refer to PlantUML website.

There are some common problems for using the plantuml.jar:

• If the generating picture can't contain all classes information, you need to set generating configuration to increase the size of picture. The configuration is -DPLANTUML_LIMIT_SIZE=<your_specified_size>. For example,

  java -DPLANTUML_LIMIT_SIZE=8192 -jar plantuml.jar plantuml_text.txt

• If you can't use plantuml.jar to generating diagram. Ensure you installed JDK and Graphviz.

Usage

Option	Description	Default	Required	Examples
-u or --url	The Javadoc website URL.	null	Yes	-u https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/, or -u http://localhost/java-docs
-p or --package	The package path you want to generate.	null	Yes	-p java.nio
-s or --subpackage	Whether fetch the subpackage.	false	No	-s true
-m or --members	Whether contains classes' members.	true	No	-m false
-c or --class	Only generating parent classes and subclasses of a specified class.	null	No	-c Buffer

Note: We strongly suggest to download Javadoc that you need and to deploy the Javadoc in your local PC. It's faster, and be more friendly to other websites.

Get Javadoc

Downloads Javadoc online:

• Java SE
• Spring framework
• MyBatis
• Hibernate
• ...

Generating Javadoc with source code:

javadoc -d <javadoc_output_path> -sourcepath <src_dir> -subpackages java:<your_package_path>

For example:

javadoc -d ./api-docs -sourcepath src/main/java -subpackages java:com.taogen.docs2uml